Now that the dust has settled on this week’s indyref2 news, all parties have had time to consider what it means.
For their part, the Scottish Tories seem to be going through the five stages of grief. The denial started ahead of the last Holyrood elections – “Scots don’t want another divisive independence referendum” – and continued even after those same Scots returned a pro-independence majority of MSPs to Holyrood.
Then there was the anger, directed mostly towards Nicola Sturgeon herself, with not-so-subtle gendered digs about her being “obsessive” and “going on and on” about another vote.
They had some anger left over for voters too though. For the crime of apparently being too wee, too poor and too stupid to vote Tory.
By my reckoning, this week’s news has now forced them into the bargaining stage. Although given this is the Scottish Tories we’re talking about, their negotiating tactics aren’t exactly the smartest.
They’re threatening to boycott the #PretendyRef. All No voters will be urged to stay at home on polling day. It’s not exactly 3D chess, is it?
The five stages of grief conclude with depression and then, finally, acceptance. Scottish Tories should pencil both in for October 2023.
Anyway, onto FMQs where MSPs were gathered for the final sparring session before summer recess.
We were treated to another rowdy statistics war between Nicola Sturgeon and Douglas Ross.
Nicola Sturgeon takes questions from MSPs at the final FMQs before summer recess https://t.co/vFP1oSJ4YT
— The National (@ScotNational) June 30, 2022
The Scottish Tory leader began by asking the First Minister if she agreed with the Chief Constable of Police Scotland that policing is not one of the Scottish Government’s spending priorities.
The First Minister insisted that policing was a priority for her government. Then she rolled up her sleeves and prepared for the angry exchange of numbers that both her and Douglas Ross seem to enjoy so much.
“In Scotland, there are 32 officers per 10,000 population, that compares to the situation in England, where there are just 23 police officers per 10,000 population” she said.
She went on to say that the police budget had been increased by £40.5 million this year, but the resource spending review is based on the budget available to the Scottish Government, ‘’which is of course constrained by the fact that our budget is largely set by Westminster”.
She added: “So if Douglas Ross wants more money for this government to allocate, then perhaps as well as asking me questions, he might want to make one or two representations to his boss at Westminster.”
As you can imagine, that comment went down like a champagne flute of cold sick with Douglas Ross. Aside from Scotland’s gypsy traveller community, there’s nothing that annoys him more than Nicola Sturgeon mentioning his party’s performance in government.
“That is a dire warning from the Chief Constable of Police Scotland that the First Minister has just ignored and deflected saying ‘look elsewhere, look at the issues in the rest of the UK’ – look at the issues here in Scotland RIGHT NOW!” he retorted.
I agree with him. Let’s have a big debate about the issues facing Scotland and come up with different ideas on how best to tackle them both now and in the future. It would be a healthy democratic exercise where people who live in Scotland can have a nice long chat about the direction the country is headed.
Think you could make time in your diary for something like that, Douglas?
